ANAHEIM >> Nick Ritchie has begun this season skating with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry because, after all, who hasn’t?

There have been big ones (Dustin Penner), short ones (Chris Kunitz), young ones (Kyle Palmieri) and old ones (Dany Heatley). There have been glamour guys (Bobby Ryan) and foot soldiers (Devante Smith-Pelly).

Todd Bertuzzi, Rickard Rakell, Matt Beleskey and Patrick Maroon have also manned that precarious wing, and we may be forgetting a few.

There are privileges involved in playing with guys who carry four Olympic gold medals and make a combined $19.25 million this season. There are responsibilities and conditions, too.

Ryan needed the puck as much as Getzlaf and Perry did, and the karma didn’t always work in the playoffs. Others couldn’t keep up, or couldn’t adjust to the task of fetching pucks in the corner and playing prevent offense by staying high in the zone.

Penner helped Getzlaf and Perry win the 2007 Stanley Cup, on the PPG line, because he was a hulk with a safecracker’s hands. Kunitz also helped the Twins with his busybody work along the boards, and it was good training for Kunitz’s days in Pittsburgh with Sidney Crosby.

Can Ritchie be the one who makes the door quit revolving?

Maybe, although nothing should be permanent after this no-show loss to Columbus on Friday night.

Ritchie, who doesn’t turn 21 until Dec. 5, he has two goals, and Getzlaf and Perry have started much more strongly than last season.

There’s a chance Rakell will play left wing when he returns, but Ritchie is playing up to his 6-foot-2 and 232 pounds. He seems to have justified Don Cherry’s irate reaction when Toronto took William Nylander, a Swede, with the ninth pick in the 2014 draft. Ritchie, a proud Canadian, went No. 10.

“And he’s the third-best scorer in the draft!” Cherry thundered.

“I think my game translates pretty well to do the stuff that helps them (Getzlaf and Perry),” Ritchie said Friday morning. “I try to go to the net, go to the corners and play physical, try to create some room. Obviously the other guy on the line needs to open up opportunities for them.”

Ritchie has played backup before. He played with Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin for Team Canada in the World Juniors. He was also the lead singer for the Peterborough Petes in junior hockey, with 74 points in 61 games in 2014 while he rolled up 127 penalty minutes.

“He has a mean side to him,” coach Randy Carlyle said. “He’s displayed it in numerous situations. If you continue to hit people, there will be confrontation along the way, and he already leads the league in hits (4.6 per game coming into Friday).

“I guarantee you that he will have a reputation by the end of the season, that you don’t mess with Nick.”

Ritchie’s older brother Brett plays a similar rose with the Dallas Stars. Although they play opposite wings and might have expected to clash at times during the Ducks’ loss in Dallas Oct. 13, they were rarely on the ice simultaneously. That’s the other thing about playing up front. Ritchie has a nightly date with the best wingers and defensemen.

Hockey was destiny for the Ritchies. Father Paul played six years of junior hockey, including three years with the London Knights. “He’d build us a rink in the backyard every year,” Nick said.

The family lived in Orangeville, a small town in southern Ontario which is also the home of former Ducks goalie Dan Ellis and NBA rookies Thon Maker and Jamal Murray.

Nick played in his first Junior A game before his 16th birthday.

“I had a late birthday and I was already pretty big,” he said.

It was pretty much a nonstop flight from there, until Ritchie got promoted to the Ducks last year and realized the game was a little too fast for his body. A summer of sensible eating and hard workouts with Ducks strength coach Mark Fitzgerald got him primed for Carlyle’s camp.

“He’s looking to solidify himself to play with the two best players,” Carlyle said.

“The luxury of playing with two guys like that is that when it’s your turn to be first on the backcheck and the forecheck, go ahead and do it. It also goes for Getzlaf and Perry. You don’t automatically designate Nick as the guy who has to be back. When the situation fits and you’re the third guy, you better be the guy who gets back. This isn’t part-time work.”